A Pocket Buyer's Guide for Home Networking

Imagine this: Your two kids, Timmy, eleven, and Tammy, thirteen, are working on their schoolwork diligently, on their own computers, at complete opposite ends of the house. There's no shouting, no pulling of hair, no threats to the family dog, just quiet silence wrapped in the melodious tapping of keys. And when its time to print or save files, no one has to go anywhere. Wireless networking has been a godsend to parents everywhere. With new wireless routers from companies like Linksys, Netgear and Motorola, the hair thinning and stress inducing battles between siblings have been put to an end. The days of who gets on the computer to play video games, research reports and chat with friends are soon to be a distant memory. The beauty of this wondrous technology is you need only three things, a broadband connection (DSL, cable, etc.) a wireless access point, and a wireless card for any desktop or notebook you want to connect to the internet.

Some of the newer features common to wireless broadband routers include a wireless range of up to 1500 feet, speeds of 108Mps, 128bit encryption to provide secure transfers, and built in firewalls for added protection. Now for those of you that can't keep track of all those crazy acronyms, let's try and put all these bits and strings of unpronounceable letters into a somewhat more digestible form.

In terms of specifications for your hardware, let's take it one step at a time.